Uncommon, Rare, and Collector's Delights.

I sadly can't find it right now to share pictures of it. I searched all the boxes and made myself crazy half-thinking I dreamed it. Anyway, for rare and obscure how's that:

As you may know, most if not all of the war-time CZJ lenses got made in LTM form factor. This of course includes the Biogon.
I guess in order to make the lens as small as possible (it's tiny) they also made the questionable decision to omit the outside filter threads.

There is however an adapter (mine is painted black, finished in brass and has a Zeiss number xxx/xxx on it) to screw into the Biogon which gives you your filter threads back. However now you can't change the aperture. The Jupiter-12s design seems a bit ... uh ... smarter there
 
After having found a very early in production Minion 35A, (1948) from Tokyo Kokagu, I never imagined I would ever see another, but here are the twins. I am assuming the camera on the left could be one of the first 75 produced. I found this before reading the very informative article written by Wes Loder, which documents the Minion 35 series of A, B, and C, all produced in 1948-49 time frame. Always have had a penchant for the earlier Topcon cameras after buying the fixed lens 35L and shooting a few rolls through it on a trip to CA. Great 4.4cm/F2 lens on that one. Then later on after the Minion, Tokyo Kogaku released the Topcon 35 A and RF equipped 35B with an interchangeable 8cm/F5.6 lens. Not the greatest optic in the world but a very unique piece. They never seemed to fall for the interchangeable lens RF cameras and went quickly into the SLR market with their Topcon R which obviously kept them going for quite some time while the many other Japanese companies failed in the approaching 60's decade.

Minion 35A (2).jpg


IMG_1129.jpg Topcon 35L.jpg
 
I don't know if the Zorki ZK 1:2 f=5cm is rare or collectible, but according to Sovietcams it was produced in a limited quantity during 1949-50. It is considered to be the first version of the Jupiter 8 with the new optical scheme. It looks very similar to the Zeiss Jena Sonnar that was assembled from original Zeiss parts and issued in the USSR in 1948. I don't know if the Zorki has Zeiss glass, maybe someone here on RFF knows.

med_U73354.1645111071.0.jpg

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I think the consensus is that the lenses labelled Zorki were indeed made with glass from Zeiss, and are uncommon. I have three collapsible CZJ 50/2 lenses that look exactly like yours, except for the name ring.
 
ZK Lenses very welcome Here!

Thankyou. Interesting that it has a 4-digit SN on the RF Cam. I've seen 3 and 4 digit numbers on the internal parts of the focus mount of F1.5 ZK and Zeiss LTM Sonnars.
 
Thanks Dexdog and Brian! I just purchased it attached to a 1949 Zorki 1B, probably sold as a pair back in 1949. Looking forward to shooting it one of these days.
 


A very early KMZ Turret finder that came with a Beautiful set of Kiev/Contax mount KMZ Jupiters.

I've opened early KMZ lenses before and have found Zeiss Serial Numbers.

Opened up this finder to clean slight haze and a little debris-



Zeiss Serial Numbers on the internal parts.



I learned how to do a CLA on the J-9. Now I know why Fedka's repairman did not work on them. BUT- I had a spare mount, was successful for that one and went on to the 1955 KMZ J-9.
 


I compared the early Turret finder (right) with my much later one.

Obviously it is from the Star Trek Mirror Universe. Bearded Mr Spock used it.

Then figured out the new one is for a Zorki/Fed and the old one is for a Contax/Kiev.
 
zuikologist said:
Are they marked to show which system they are for?
Click to expand...

I know that my copy isn't marked. You select the style that matches your camera. Zorki/FED cold shoes are offset to the left of center, so you get a finder that leans to the right to compensate. Contax/Kiev are the opposite.
 
zuikologist said:
Are they marked to show which system they are for?
Click to expand...

No not marked. I just bought another early KMZ that is like this one. It looks like the mirror image version became the standard, at least looking at SN and Ebay auctions. I want to see if it has the internal numbers. The design of the mask also changed during the run. The later finder lets you see outside of the frame.

The shoe is in slightly different locations on the two systems.
 
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One-of-a-kind MP-7 ...
 
Previously posted in the Pentax thread.

The Asahi Pentax S, made from 1958-59.

The AP-S was a peculiar model, released between the popular Asahi Pentax ('AP'), which introduced the Pentax name, and Asahi Pentax K, which introduced an automated aperture mechanism. The AP-S brought in some minor changes over the AP (eg. metric shutter speeds), and the auto-aperture housing of the AP-K but not the mechanism itself.

Arguably the rarest Pentax production model, only around 4,900 units were made (estimates vary but this is Gerjan's guess).

My example came with it's original preset Takumar 55/f2.2 and 135/f3.5

 
Sonnar Brian said:
No not marked. I just bought another early KMZ that is like this one. It looks like the mirror image version became the standard, at least looking at SN and Ebay auctions. I want to see if it has the internal numbers. The design of the mask also changed during the run. The later finder lets you see outside of the frame.
Click to expand...

Is there any variation in the actual focal lengths of the two different versions?

I have a late one (294087) and while 50mm and up is pretty accurate, the 35mm and 28mm finders are both considerably wider than marked. I spent a bit of time playing with manually set framelines in an X-Pro 2 (factoring in the difference between focal lengths on APS-C and 35mm, of course!), comparing it with the turret I have, and I think the 28mm is actually closer to a 24mm (or equivalent, anyway). I can't remember how much wider the 35mm was off-hand, but I want to say it was more like 31mm; it's definitely only just tighter than the Zeiss 28mm finder I picked up last year!
 
The field of view is the same for the two, and the open area of the frame is the same. The later version shows the entire circular field, with lines to help measure the off-frame area. The older finder uses a solid mask. You could open up the finder and customize the mask.
 
The problem with that is that the mask is shared between all the "turrets" - it's in the rear half. Customising it to make the 35mm and 28mm tighter will also throw the 50mm, 85mm and 135mm focal lengths out.

I often wonder if I've got a bit of a duffer and whether other copies of the FSU turret are more accurate - or even whether the Zeiss ones they're based on are designed the same way. I'm not about to start throwing money at turrets just to see how much sample variation there is, though.
 
My later finder does not use a solid mask, it uses one with lines filling the unused portion of the frame. Could you make extra marks on this type of frame to use as a guide for yourself?

When the next finder shows up, I'll take a look.
 
CZJ 5cm f1.5 R-Sonnar in LTM. The R designation means that the lens was intended to be used for x-rays. Aside from the "R" engraving looks pretty much like other CZJ transition lenses of the era. This is a nice sharp lens.

 
This got delivered today, and I need to blow off some dust, obviously. A CZJ 85/2 in Contax mount, part of a batch of 500 lenses completed August 30, 1937. This is one of the earlier versions of this lens, only stops down to f 16, instead of f 22 as in later lenses. Kinda hard to get a good pic of it in poor light, but the front element of this lens is coated, even though the name ring does not have the red "T". I think that other lens surfaces near the nose of the lens may be coated too. Rear element is not coated. I have been looking for a nice clean example of this lens for a while now, and this one has "perfect" glass to borrow a Sonnar Brian term.


 
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